READY OR NOT
Global Challenges, College Learning, and America’s Promise
Forum for Presidents and Foundation Officers
The Courage of Our Commitments: American Anxiety and the Urgency of Excellence
Forum Chair:
Daniel F. Sullivan, President, St. Lawrence University and Chair, AAC&U Board of Directors
Thursday, January 22, 2009
8:30-10:00pm
Invitational Reception for Presidents and Foundation Officers
Hosted by the President and Board of Directors of AAC&U
Friday, January 23, 2009
7:00-8:30am
Breakfast Discussion
Competing Curricula? Anti-intellectualism and the Commitment to Examined Values
- Andrew Delbanco, Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
- Lee Knefelkamp, Professor of Education and Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University and Senior Scholar for AAC&U’s major initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility
College has become essential, but many Americans remain suspicious of its most fundamental commitments: critical inquiry, values exploration, scientific evidence and standards, global engagement, transformational learning. How do we understand these suspicions as an enduring cultural force? How do they influence the students we admit and seek to teach? How do we engage resistant students? How do college leaders build broader understanding that—in a turbulent global environment—intellectual acuity and intercultural learning are powerful American assets? Does the 2008 election create new opportunity to make knowledge a public value?
8:45-10:00am
Discussion Session
Public Priorities: Positioning Liberal Education as an Economic and Community Advantage
- Barbara Lawton, Lt. Governor, Wisconsin and member of the LEAP National Leadership Council
- Richard Wells, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
How do we connect high achievement with Americans’ hopes and anxieties about the future? And, equally important, how can higher education advance a conception of high achievement that features the multiple aims of college learning: economic, civic, and personal? Looking at the national evidence on economic priorities and at “Advantage Wisconsin,” this session will probe ways to establish investment in liberal learning as a strategic advantage for high-impact outcomes: more and better-prepared college graduates, more high-paying jobs of the future, and stronger civic community.
10:15-11:30am
Presentation and Response
Campus Priorities: Building Horizontal Leadership for Intentional and Integrative Learning
- Richard Keeling, Principal, Keeling & Associates, LLC and advisor to the Leadership Coalition on Campus Change for Learning
- Leo Lambert, President, Elon University
- Lou Anna Simon, President, Michigan State University
This session will explore ways to overcome the powerful centrifugal forces that work against intentional and integrative learning on almost every campus. It will also share insights from campuses involved in the new national Leadership Coalition to advance “campus change for learning.” (The New Leadership Coalition is sponsored by the Bringing Theory to Practice project, with support from the S. Engelhard Center, the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, and the Lumina Foundation for Education.)
11:45-1:30pm
Presidents’ Luncheon
The Disparities Within: What New Research Shows about Curriculum Practices and Students’ (Under) Achievement
- George D. Kuh, Chancellor’s Professor and Director, Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University
- Charles Blaich, Director of Inquiries, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College
This session will explore findings from major national studies on practices that support higher student achievement and have special benefits for underserved students. These new studies, including a longitudinal study of liberal arts outcomes, turn a spotlight on practices that “work” to support both persistence and higher achievement on liberal learning outcomes. They also provide troubling evidence that those practices that support intellectual, and ethical development remain much too infrequent—with faculty priorities a key variable.
1:45-2:45pm
Presentation and Discussion
Hard Choices: Economic Realities and the Courage of Our Commitments
- Jane Wellman, Executive Director, Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs
- Richard Guarasci, President, Wagner College
This session will examine the way presidents are deploying resources to support students and achieve institutional and educational goals in a precipitous economic environment.
3:00-4:00pm
Presentation and Response
New Vision, New Markers: The Way Forward on Accountability for Student Learning and Achievement
- Robert Sternberg, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University
- Helen Giles-Gee, President, Keene State College
- Eduardo Padron, President, Miami Dade College
4:15-5:30pm
Presidents’ Roundtable
Sitting in the President’s Chair: Making Education for Personal and Social Responsibility a Shared Priority—On Campus and Beyond
- Theodore E. Long, President, Elizabethtown College
- Mildred
García, President, California State University - Dominguez Hills
Over 300 AAC&U presidents have signed AAC&U’s Core Commitments Call to Action pledging to re-establish education for personal and social responsibility as a central goal within American colleges and universities. This roundtable is designed to tackle how presidents can use their position to promote responsibility to self and others as an integral component of every student’s college education. The session will feature a free flowing and candid discussion of strategies that propel this agenda forward.
Sponsored by AAC&U’s project, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility, funded by The Templeton Foundation.
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